


Don't Dream (Don't Even Think)

by CaptainKaysno, missingnolovefic



Series: Not A Good Man (But You Got Conviction) [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst, Batman AU, Batman!Ryan, Canonical Character Death, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Red Hood!Trevor, Resurrection, Ryan and Trevor are half-brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 17:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18761074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainKaysno/pseuds/CaptainKaysno, https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingnolovefic/pseuds/missingnolovefic
Summary: Ryan has buried loved ones before, what is one more? Trevor died and it’s his fault.Trevor agrees.





	Don't Dream (Don't Even Think)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vagrant_Blvrd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Carve It in Stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632767) by [Vagrant_Blvrd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd). 



> We were just playing with our imaginations and then everything got all intense. 
> 
> If you would like to read this over at tumblr or just come say hi to either of us! you can find kays @ itskaysno.tumblr.com or you can find missy @ miss-ingno.tumblr.com!

St. Anscom’s is one of Gotham’s beautiful churches. Ryan hates it with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

It might be a little unfair to both the church and the building but the sight of it is like a punch in the gut. Worse, even, because Ryan has learned to breathe through those. Wide street-facing windows stare at him accusingly as he steps out of his black Corvette and hands his keys to the attendant. What once was white pristine stone has long since been tarnished an irreversible black. The long line of men and women in black slowly streaming into it gives him a horrible sense of deja vu dragging his entire world into a powerful whirlpool, swallowing it whole.

Ryan has been here exactly twice before.

His mother’s funeral had been held here when he’d been seven. He’d clung to his father’s giant hand tightly as men and women scrambled over themselves to talk to them. To express their condolences and talk about the positive impact Sabrina Haywood had on their life. A crowd of strangers explaining on and on and _on_.

Nineteen years later he had gripped sixteen-year-old Trevor’s shoulder as they walked into their parents’ funeral. An uncomfortable amount of photos were taken of their grief and loss, splashed on every Gotham newspaper, from the _Gazette_ to the _Times_. Ryan had left three weeks later after one last breakfast shared with a disbelieving and spiteful teenager.

Now eight years later he’s taller and he’s stronger… and he’s still walking up the same godforsaken steps into the same fucking building. Except, this time he’s walking alone. He waved Jack off when he’d asked if he wanted to join him. Jeremy hasn’t been able to look him in the eyes for the past week. He can’t stand the pity and the judgment emanating off the other Justice League members, so here he is, alone amongst sycophants and strangers-

“Ryan! Ryan! Mr. Haywood-”

Just like that the world turns back on and he glances over at the journalists who are clamoring over each other to get a soundbite from him. The same stations have been talking nonstop about the end of Haywood Industries now that he’s in charge. 24-hour debates that keep coming back to him and Trevor and who handled the business better in the past.

He summons every inch of his fury and grief and gives them a hot glare that somehow causes them to go silent. It doesn’t stop the click click of the cameras but it helps the non-stop headache that’s been his enemy since he woke up this morning.

“God, you’d think they’d have something called shame,” a familiar voice snorts. Ryan nearly jumps out of his skin to come face to face with the tired blue eyes of Commissioner Ramsey.

Ryan tries on a smile that disappears as soon as it touches his lips. “You’d think,” he agrees. His voice sounds as hollowed out and tired as he feels.

Ramsey frowns sympathetically. He reaches forward and holds open the heavy wooden door silently. Ryan takes a deep breath and forces himself to take the step into the building.

The inside is worse than the outside. The entire church is packed to the brim with people that Ryan had been rigorously vetting. Some of them are school friends, most are businessmen and women who will somehow find a way to slip Ryan a business card, some of them are recipients of awards or grants that Trevor had founded or continued from their parents.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Haywood,” Ramsey says. He holds out a small flask and shrugs when Ryan waves it away. “He was a damn good kid.”

Ramsey doesn’t know the half of the good that Trevor did for Gotham. The real reason he died. Ryan forces a smile onto his face, and it hurts. “The very best kind of man, Commissioner.”

He knows that proper etiquette requires him to talk to the various people who have shown up. It’s just... talking to Ramsey has already cost him half his strength and he actually  _likes_ Geoff so there’s no telling how much he’ll hate talking to anybody else. So instead, he just nods his head in the direction of various faceless men and women as he rushes up to the front pew.

The plan backfires on him the closer towards the front he gets. He averts his gaze, trying to avoid looking at… at... He flinches as his eyes are inadvertently drawn to the sealed casket which holds his little brother’s body. He can hear Jack sobbing quietly in the front row. Jeremy’s red-rimmed eyes slide towards him and then snap away.

Jeremy and Trevor had a date planned for this Saturday. Trevor hadn’t said more than that but he’d been smiling as he’d jokingly asked for patrol off that night as if Ryan hadn’t listened to Jeremy’s terrified rambling over asking Trevor out for the past two weeks. They’d been dancing around each other for years, and Ryan had watched them, fondly indulgent as he wondered if they’d ever get their shit together...

But Trevor is dead.

And it’s his fault.

He should’ve never gotten his little brother involved.

Later he would be one of the pallbearers and carry him to his last resting place and he would find the Joker and beat him to a bloody pulp. Maybe his hands will go further than he thought they would. Maybe he will slip and hit harder than he should. Throw Joker off the edge of a building, letting gravity take its toll. Maybe he will watch and not call for an ambulance, just this once.

Ryan imagines the last look of horrified glee on the clown’s face before the Joker takes his last breath and tries not to let it lift his spirits.

The fact that it still does terrifies him.

He clenches his hand into a fist. It’s what Joker wants, he knows. For Batman to lose control. He can’t let him win. _He can’t._

Ryan stares at the closed casket and the smiling picture of Trevor set in an iron picture frame. He wishes that, at the very least, they could have an open casket funeral, like they did for their parents. He closes his eyes and remembers Trevor as he found him: unnatural smile twisting his lips painted in red, skin paler than usual. His warm brown eyes cold and empty and staring up towards the ceiling.

Not even seeing his beloved stars one last time.

It isn’t fair.

...it should have been him.

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Trevor’s eyes snap open to a sea of green. The entire world is dim and his breath unsteady as his failing heart tries to restart itself.

What did the Joker do? What is the Joker doing?

Acid? He tries to move his arms, his hands shaking as he lifts them ever so slowly. They hit glass.

A glass box. He’s in a glass box.

What the fuck.

His lips are slowly dropping from the unnatural smile that Joker cut into his face. The burning pain of broken bones slowly eases.

Is he dying? Finally, after hours and hours of wishing for it?

His hands fall back down limp to his sides and he lays there waiting for something else to happen. His parents to greet him or to be cast down into a fiery pit or something.

Mostly though it’s just the revitalizing energy of his body slowly knitting itself back together. Had Ryan and Jeremy finally found him? He’s never heard of a hospital using this though. New Justice League technology? Why didn’t Ryan tell him? He swears to God, if his brother kept this level of healing tech a secret he will-

There’s the jarring snap of bones slipping back into place and knitting over, and Trevor grits his teeth against the pain. Whatever this is, it is an awful way to heal. He feels every ache, every cell come back to life, and contrary to every poetic imagination, it burns like _hell_. Green smoke obscures his vision and Trevor huffs a laugh turned scream as his spine rams into his head.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

Maybe this _is_ hell, in all its painful glory, and he’ll relive this pain over and over and over again-

For an eternity, his world is pain. Then- a voice. High-pitched, vaguely familiar. Synapses fire, try to connect, and Trevor can  _feel_ it on a molecular level that  _will_ drive him insane if it doesn’t _stop_.

The voice keeps speaking and slowly, slowly the awareness ebbs away into blissful silence. Trevor closes his eyes, enjoys the emptiness in his head. Breathes in green smoke, lets it wash through him, carry the tingling of regrowing nerve endings away with it as he exhales.

The woman- Talia- keeps talking. He knows her on a bone-deep level he can’t explain, knows her better than ever before. Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter, and now she’s so much more: his balm, the lull after the storm, his saviour.

Because that’s why he’s here, he realizes. Talia’s saved him when no one else would. When his family- Ryan, Jeremy, Jack- his friends- they all abandoned him. Left him to die at Joker’s hands and he can see it now, clear as the green mist clouding his eyes.

Talia speaks to him of the year that passed since his ‘death’.

Speaks of his family moving on.

Of Jeremy dating his college roommate.

Of Ryan finding a replacement Robin that looks just like him.

Of his friends, his team - no one came looking, when clearly, Trevor survived. Could have been healed, just like Talia did. Enemy of his brother, daughter of a villain, the only one who thought him worth saving.

Trevor inhales and it burns.

Talia keeps speaking and her words etch themselves into his mind, a spooling thread of  _alone alone alone_ , of _abandoned_ , of  _no one cares_. And Trevor breathes through the pain because she’s _right_ and they both know it and it hurts, it shouldn’t hurt, he should have known-

He always knew it would end badly. Always been aware of the risk, too clever not to calculate, too aware of how fleeting life is after his parents’ death-

Even if a small part of him, the little brother, the child… clung to Ryan’s words. To Ryan’s promise.

 _I’ll keep you safe._ They echo through his numb mind, empty of all thought. _I’ll protect you. I won’t let them, any of them, harm you._

Empty words.

And in the storm of memories, Talia’s voice is an anchor as she speaks of training, protection, revenge.

“I will teach you how to keep yourself safe,” Talia whispers, a cool hand coming up to brush his sweaty hair back. “Nobody will ever be able to harm you again.”

“And then?” Trevor croaks. Talia smiles, gentle, ever so gentle.

“And then,” she whispers into his ear and it is honey on his tongue, the _drip drip drip_ of green, “Then you will have your revenge.”

  
_Yes_.

**Author's Note:**

> “The Pit of Despair! Don’t even… don’t even think about trying to escape. The chains are far too thick. Don’t dream of being rescued, either; the only way in is secret. Only the Prince, the Count, and I know how to get in and out.” - The Princess Bride
> 
> * * *
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you like this please leave a kudos and a comment! Both of those keep us healthy and well-fed and dying to give yall more fic!


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